NEAR PICCADILLY, BY ANNETTE SISSON |
In homage to Jack Gilbert’s “Married” First Christmas, twenty-six years ago, time tumbled ahead of us. One day after, I boarded a plane for London. Without you. Snow piled along glittering streets. Wind blistered my eyes. The Thames blustered, hushed by edgings of ice. And every hour, my body missing its ribcage. Heart valves slipping. I scoured the city for relief. Traffic flooded the street, surged from the wrong direction. I stood on a curb near Piccadilly Circus straining to cross, to gather myself, salvage the lost body parts. Raw, blasted by river and gust, hobbled by a cold ocean. Riven by want. |
Annette Sisson has published poetry at Typishly, One, Turtle Island Quarterly, Kosmos, KAIROS, River Heron Review Psaltery & Lyre, Nashville Review, and many others, as well as a chapbook entitled A Casting Off (Finishing Line, May 2019). Among other awards, she was named a BOAAT Writing Fellow for 2020 and was nominated for "Best of the Net" in 2019. Her full-length book of poetry, Small Fish in High Branches, was recently named a finalist with Glass Lyre Press and a semifinalist for the Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prize for Poetry (U of Wis P). It continues its quest for a home.